Dave's Thoughts and Plans

Qs, As and an S + R

I thought I’d spend a post elucidating my thoughts on this Game Table idea by answering/responding to friends who posted about it on my blog and FB! Here we go!

Q: Have you seen the GeekChic tables? They are cool / incorporate a lot of interesting ideas.A: Yes, I have seen them. Or rather, I knew of them and I had browsed their website once upon a time. I don’t think I will be getting one of theirs, because two of the reasons I find this project compelling is the chance to build something myself and to have it be my design. I do think I will review them, though, and possibly go check one out (at PAAAX?), to get ideas.

Q: How many people would you like to seat?A: Ideally, a complement of 7 (6 + me) because I find that to be the maximum size of gaming group I am comfortable with. I think it should have reasonably optimzed seating for 4 and 6 as well.

Q: When you say “cubbyholes” do you mean places below the tabletop surface, like indented or would you like to be able to place sheet holders in certain places that rotate/slide up and down?A: I guess I mean places below the tabletop surface, indented. Ideally, I would like some amount of display potential so that a player could raise up an illustration or visual aid in their space and others could see it, but most of the time (maybe all of the time) I would want that space below the table.

Q: LCD mounted flat facing up? or movable so it rotates around?A: My initial thoughts were mounted flat facing up. I want it to be a map on which miniatures can be placed, or a digital game board for board games, as needed.

Q: Drink holders that slide out of the bottom so spills are contained or hit the floor instead of the table?A: Yes, that sounds like a great idea! But in practice, I expect players will just place their drinks at table level, so I may also try to investigate solutions that involve having them spills-contained on that surface.

Q: How many in-progress games do you want to store?A: Good question – probably no more than three? Two is more likely, with a third on the actual table surface.

Q: Before you get too ambitious, exactly how much experience with furniture building do you have? And are your power tools up to speed?A:Too late for that, heh! But no, I have no experience with furniture building at all! I am, however, naive, intelligent and somewhat patient. I expect to be able to learn, and will budget time and resources to trial and error as well. I don’t have any power tools other than a drill, so obviously that would be part of the project and would need to be carefully considered.

S: Tim has been dreaming about an LCD tabletop that can plug into an iPad for the DM and connect to each player via iPhones.
R: Tim is a genius! I’ll have to consider this, and possibly *ahem* reacquire certain Apple technologies for the purposes of testing. >_>

Special thanks to Alan, Monty, Dylan, Sean and Molly for the feedback and questions!

Next up – some basic project outline stuff, so that I get it from head to (digital) paper.

1 Comment

This sounds like an awesome project. I have wanted some sort of flat panel LCD table for gaming ever since I saw Microsoft Surface in some big special effects movie. If you’d like advice on power tool acquisitions let me know.